Highway to Hell
by FireOnHigh
Summary: Dean and Sam meet a young hunter on the road. They take her in, and her life begins a rapid downward spiral. The chapters are not directly sequential, but still in chronological order; they will take place days or months apart. Rated M for language. Trigger warnings listed with each chapter. (Chapter One revised!)
1. Livin' Easy, Lovin' Free

**Trigger warning: Rape (implied)**

"And I need you now toniiiiiiiight...and I need you now foreverrrrrrrrr."

"Dean, I don't think you're hitting all the high notes."

"What's that, Sammy?" he replied, shouting over the Impala's stereo. "Can't here you over the music!"

Sam snorted and turned his face back toward the window, taking in the dusk-greyed, snow-dusted plains of the middle of Kansas with tired eyes. "I'm not twelve. Don't call me Sammy."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

"Whatever."

"Aww, are you pouting now, Sammy?" Dean turned the radio down a couple of notches. "I can put in that cassette of Metallica you like so well."

"Look at that car."

"Pulled over to the side of the road. So what?" He scanned his eyes over the vintage Volkswagen Bug, painted a shade of rust red that did no favours for the banged up vehicle as the Impala roared past. The passenger side door was hanging open, and luggage was spilling out of the trunk.

"Dammit, Dean! Pull over," Sam ordered.

"No can do. We have that job in Hays. You do remember the spirit that's been terrorizing that old woman and her children? It's just an abandoned vehicle, Sammy."

"Whatever."

Silence kept the brothers company through the long miles across Kansas' flat, uneventful back country. The sun set and snow began to fall lightly, flying at the windshield and creating a dizzying tunnel effect.

"What's that?" Sam asked suddenly, his eyes snapping fully open and his voice concerned.

"See another car?" Dean mocked.

The headlights illuminated a limping figure, hunched over against the wind and walking west, the same direction Dean was driving. The figure started, and jerked into a staggering run, before stumbling over its feet and sprawling face-first into the snow. As the car drove by, Dean switched his gaze from the rode, to the sprawled figure, and back to the road again. Glancing at his brother, he saw a look of alarm on his face.

"Fine, Sam!" He slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a skidding halt. With an impatient sigh, he threw the car into reverse.

Pulled off onto the shoulder, he shut the car off. "Alright. What now?"

"Don't get pissed at me! You're the one who always wants to save everyone!"

Dean slammed his door open at the same moment Sam did. The brothers glared daggers at each other before Sam easily slid out of the Impala, stretching his lanky frame to it's full 6'4" height in one easy movement. "Hey, are you alright?" he called out to the limp figure in the snow.

The person let out a muffled cry and tried to make it to their feet, only to fall again. "Get away from me!" _she _screamed, her voice roughened like a pack a day smoker, crawling on her knees and forearms to get away.

"Stop! We're not going to hurt you, okay?"

"Stay the fuck back from me!" She turned back to Dean and Sam, her wide eyes all pupil in the light from the Impala's headlights. Her clothes hung from her impossibly skinny frame; her collarbones and ribs stuck out starkly from her pale, bruised skin above the ripped neckline of her shirt. A massive blackened bruise coloured her the left side of her face from jaw to forehead. The skin over her left cheekbone was split open and leaking a thick stream of blood, and her nose was clearly broken. "Don't..." her voice trailed off in a strangled sob.

Dean tried on his best friendly smile. "We won't hurt you, kid."

A faint smile tugged at the corners of her split upper and lower lips, causing more blood to spill out of the wounds and down her already blood encrusted chin. Two silver piercings glittered on her lower lip, while a ragged wound showed where another stud had been worked through her nose. "Not a kid, asshole. I'm 19."

"You look 16. Hell, you look 15," he snapped.

She flinched, crossed her arms over her chest, pulling the torn remains of her shirt together and trying to zip up her puffy polyester jacket, her trembling fingers resisting her every move. Sam noted that chunks of her hair had been ripped out, and the button on her worn pair of jeans was missing, ripped off with great force. She stumbled a step backwards, favouring her left leg. "Fuck you."

"Dean! Stop being an ass." Turning to the girl, no- the self proclaimed woman, he asked gently. "What is your name?"

"Malachi."

"That's a guy's name," Dean interrupted.

"And 'Bitch' is a girl's name, but it fits you just fine," she shot back.

Sam grabbed Dean's arm when he started to walk back to the car. "Calm it down."

"People call me Mal, if that makes you feel better." A tremor racked her body and she began to shiver uncontrollably, to the point that she dropped to her knees. "So...cold..." she stammered.

"Here, take my coat," Sam offered. "And my name's Sam, by the way." He started toward her to give her his heavy denim jacket, but she began to panic anew.

"Stay...back..."

"Fine, fine." He tossed the jacket to her and she climbed inside it eagerly, all the while keeping her frightened gaze on the brothers. Sam's white button up shirt began to stick to his chest as the snow that was falling from the sky hit him and melted. Malachi's jaw dropped when she saw the outline of a tattoo begin to appear through the suddenly sheer material. She shed Sam's coat and her own in one easy roll of her shoulders and grabbed the neckline of her shredded v-neck, pulling it down until it almost revealed her breasts.

"What're you...?" Dean demanded before his eyes latched onto the two round black tattoos, each a hand's-breadth below her collarbones. One was almost an exact match to his and Sam's anti-possession tattoos, while the other was a much more stylized version, done up in grey ink as well as black, with a hint of orange and red to illuminate the flames.

"You're one of us."

"A Hunter. Yeah, I am." Mal readjusted her shirt, covering herself back up. "You have the tat, as well?" Dean showed her his ink and she let herself relax. "Did you pass my car earlier?

"If it was a red Volkswagen, then yeah. What happened to you, kid?" Dean let his expression soften, and he dropped the air of sarcasm he normally used as his defense.

"My car died on me and I tried to hitch a ride..." she broke off with a muffled cry. "I'm so fucking stupid..." Her eyes rolled back into her skull and she began to seize, her spine arching so far off the ground that Dean wondered if it was going to snap. Her teeth dug into her lower lip so far that he began to worry she would bit part of it off.

Sam picked her up in his arms; she seemed to barely weigh anything, and he was easily able to keep a grip on her, in spite of her frenzied thrashing. "We're only twenty miles from Hays. We have to get her to the hospital!"

_A/N: Hope you enjoyed it! I'll try and have the next chapter up ASAP. Please leave a review and give me your thoughts- good, bad, meh, whatever._


	2. Season Ticket on a One Way Ride

**Trigger warnings: Rape (mentioned only)**

**Takes place one day after chapter one.**

"Will she be alright, Doc?" Dean easily asked the fresh-faced man who clearly had just gotten out of medical school.

"You said you are her brother, right?" He nodded a confirmation and gestured for the doctor to go on. "Four broken ribs, a concussion that caused the seizure. She needed twelve stitches for the laceration on her cheek and three more where her nose ring was ripped out. Her ankle was sprained quite severely as well."

"Was she...ah, was she..?"

"Raped?" The doctor prompted. "Yes, and quite violently. I'll spare you the details, but whoever did it was brutal."

"Son of a fucking bitch," he swore violently, his fists clenched at his sides and the cords in his neck standing at attention.

The doctor's face softened; he let his air of clinical aloofness fade, and he put one hand on Dean's shoulder. "You can go in to see her know. We had to heavily medicate her, so she might not recognize you," he warned.

"Thanks, Doc." He strode quickly to the younger woman's room and peered through the door. She lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, her grey eyes wide and darting back and forth restlessly. Her lips were moving, too, murmuring what may have been a prayer.

He pushed through the door quietly as he could, the hinges squeaking. "Whosit?" she rasped, slurring her words.

"Dean."

"Wheresh…where's Sh…Sam?" Malachi's painkiller-filmed gaze lowered, past Dean, to her arm where the I.V. needle was inserted into a vein, a shock of her short, auburn hair falling into her face. "I hate bein' drugged."

"He's taking care of your car before the police get to it." After they had laid her in in the back seat of the Impala, she had resurfaced from her stupor long enough to tell them to get her weapons out of the trunk of her Bug; that and everything else that showed she was a Hunter.

"Thanks." She gave him a tremulous smile and shifted slightly in the bed, wincing when she jostled her ribs. "So y'told them I'm your sis'r?"

"You're Malory Anderson, and we're your older brothers Samuel and Daniel."

"Prepared for ev'ry sish…situashun. Thanks f' stoppin' f'me back there."

"No prob, kid." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacked and admitted awkwardly, "It was Sam's idea, actually. I didn't want to stop."

Mal laughed drowsily. "Hey, ya ne'er know. I coulda been a demon-posseshed persh…person. Better safe'n'sorry, eshpecially in our line of work."

"How did you become a hunter?" He instantly knew that was the wrong question to ask when her eyes darkened a shade and then began to glisten with unshed tears. "Never mind. Sorry I asked."

"My shish…sishter. She was possessed by a demon an' got herself killed. Older'n me by almosht ten years; I worshipped her. And she left me…"

"Damn. I'm sorry."

"My grandpa taught me how t'hunt," she continued in the same distant tone as before.

Sam chose that moment to walk through the door, snow melting into his hair, sticking it to his forehead and the nape of his neck. "I got everything out of your car," he announced, before noticing a single crystalline tear tracking down Malachi's cheek. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fuckin' great," she snapped. "Why wouldn't I be?" Mal tried to sit up, but only succeeded in ripping the tape and the I.V. needle from her arm. An alarm immediately began to sound from the monitor at the head of her bed. "_Shit_! Can y'get me out of here?"

"We just checked you in last night. You have broken ribs…"

"I fuckin' know! I have pain meds in my backpack- y'did grab that, Sh…Sam?" She smiled grimly when he nodded. "There'sh antibiotics in there too, an' that should be ev'rything I need." Blood dripped down her arm, staining the side of her hospital gown with a patch of bright crimson. "Get th'doctor," she ordered the brothers. "I'm checkin' out now."

"Hey, hey, wait a sec!" Sam exclaimed when Mal began to remove the blood pressure cuff from her upper arm.

"Why?" she asked simply.

"Can't you at least wait until most of the drugs clear out of your system? I don't want to be dragging a drugged girl around in my car…imagine how that would look if we got pulled over," Dean countered

"Wai'a'sec. You want me t'come with you?"

"The transmission's wrecked in your car, and me and Sam aren't just going to leave you here. Just check out tomorrow morning, and then we can get going."

"Dean, we just met her yesterday," Sam objected softly. "We don't even _know_ her."

"I can hear ya, y'know," she muttered, the bed uttering a shrill whining as she raised the elevation so that she was sitting almost straight up. Her pastel blue hospital gown slid off one shoulder, showing the top edge of one of her tattoos.

"No disrespect, but we don't know you. You're not family."

"I'm no one'sh family, an' I don't intend on bein' part of yours. Familiesh are shitty." Mal chuckled icily.

"I never said anything about making you part of the family. Plus you can't check yourself out unless you have someone to give you a ride home." She started to interrupt Dean, but he help up his hand, a placating half smile twisting at his lips. "Look, all I wanna do is get you away from here and help you get back on your feet. You don't have a car anymore and you'll need some time to build up the money to buy a new one. Not to mention a place to stay."

"Fine. Whatever. But if y'fuckin' try anythin' I'll slit y'throat," she warned, and in spite of how drugged up and out of it she was, both Sam and Dean believed her. "No tricksh, y'hear?"

"No tricks," Dean agreed. "We'll just look after you until you can look after yourself."

Grudgingly she replied, "Thanksh. Both of you. I won't sh…stay with y'f'too long."

A nurse chose that moment to charge through the door, almost knocking into Dean. "Sorry it took so long for me to respond. We're kind of short staffed, what with the snow storm and all," she apologized, silencing the monitor with the push of one button. "What happened to your i.v.?"

"The drugs started wearing off and Mally didn't know where she was," Sam quickly explained, stepping to Mal's side and taking her hand, gentleness written in his very gestures. "It'll be okay, sis," he soothed.

"I hope so." As the nurse put the needle back into her arm, Malachi felt a disorienting rush as the analgesics hit her system and prickled almost with almost-pain before the sweet numbness, and she reflexively closed her eyes when the ceiling started to spin. Her breath escaped in a soft gasp and she slid into the oblivion of drugged sleep.

_Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed chapter 2! I want to give a special shout-out to Lorna Roxen for reviewing Chapter 1. Please send a review my way whether you enjoyed it or not. Thanks a million! _


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